


good death

by one_more_offbeat_anthem



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (not really major per se because it's spoiled in the summary), Alternate Universe - Human, Caretaker Dean Winchester, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Introspective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29691204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_more_offbeat_anthem/pseuds/one_more_offbeat_anthem
Summary: Dean's father is dying, and Dean is the only one left to take care of him.He learns that some broken things can, in fact, be mended.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	good death

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this originally for a class and liked it enough to adapt it for spn and toss it here : ) so dr. abraham if you find this, I did write it. And then I made it gay and like the cw show supernatural. this was just something I liked, so I hope you like it, too! 
> 
> as always, props go to the profound bond discord server. if you're 18+, [join us!](https://discord.gg/profoundbond) we're good fun :)
> 
> if you like this, i post more stuff here sometimes and also on [my tumblr](https://one-more-offbeat-anthem.tumblr.com) :) 
> 
> (thanks to cadenceimperfect for beta-ing)

If Dean had to consider how his father was going to die, he wouldn’t have guessed it would be like this. 

It isn’t like he hasn’t thought about it—when your father is an obsessed bastard, has never really been your father, sometimes you want him dead more than you want him to tell you that he loves you. 

Dean’s imagined his father John’s beloved truck wrapped around a tree or rolled over in a ditch. He’s seen gunshot wounds in his father’s abdomen, a crack in his father’s skull, a too-late trip to the emergency room after a night at the bottom of the bottle. 

He hasn’t seen John lying in bed, asking Dean to read to him. 

Dean can’t separate his father out from himself, has never been able to. Not through the fights, the anger, the divorce… His car had belonged first to his father, the calluses on Dean’s hands were instructed by his father’s hands, showing him how to check the oil before he could even drive. His music, angry at times and soft at others, belonged also to the man who had granted him the capacity to feel pain with the melodies. Dean’s taste in books had been a rebellion against John, his choices in romantic partners another rebellion after his father’s fists told him no. 

And here Dean is, reading _The Magician’s Nephew_ from _The Chronicles of Narnia_ to the man who taught him to shoot a gun before he went to kindergarten. 

“This book is the real first one, son,” John had said, dismissing _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ out of hand when Dean offered to read.

“Didn’t know you knew much about these books,” Dean had replied. He doesn’t think his father knows much about him, either. They haven’t spoken much since the last fight, about Dean’s partner, Cas. And since the divorce his mother, Mary, has never called John. Dean’s younger brother, Sam, is in California for law school, and when Dean called him to say, _Dad’s sick, some kind of cancer I think, he doesn’t have long_ , Sam had refused to come to Kansas to watch John die.

Sam will come to the funeral, though. Dean knows it.

Time is both too short and stretching out before them. There’s no way to fully bridge the gap that the years have created, but there’s enough time for this: a feeble truce. Their days are simple but full. Dean reads, they watch television and John talks at the announcer, Dean makes dinner—meatloaf, burgers, a salad once--and there are the other rituals.

No one tells you that when someone you can’t help but love, even if they have not always said that they love you too, is dying, it will hurt. That you will have to help your father go to the bathroom or take a shower and it will break your heart. That you will dole out medicine and drive him to appointments where the doctor asks for the sixteenth time, Are you sure you want to stop treatment? and it will be soul-crushing. That you will do the dishes alone while your father dozes on the couch, wasting away, and you will cry, and then try to wipe your eyes and get soap in them, and then cry some more.

But no one tells you that these will be the best days, either, that on the way home from appointments you will stop for ice cream and visit the lake, and sure, your dad can’t fish anymore, but he can watch the water while you watch him, and you will both feel calm. That the man who taught you to drive—both automatic and stick—will laugh at a joke you tell him. That he will smile at you and mean it.

John dies slowly, but then all at once it’s over. There are a few bad nights, when Dean calls the emergency line for his father’s doctor. The medication is adjusted. John sleeps more and eats less. Dean wraps up the leftovers, puts them in the fridge. He calls his father’s former best friend, Bobby, to whom John hasn’t spoken in years. Bobby’s voice is brittle as he responds to the news that the end is coming.

When John was out of town (or out of sorts) when Dean and Sam were kids, Bobby was there, down the street, always willing to watch cartoons or play catch or make mud pies--the normal stuff that normal kids do. Now Bobby lives in South Dakota, but he makes the drive, his beat-up pickup swinging into the gravel driveway mid-afternoon a few weeks into Dean’s stay. 

John and Bobby don’t speak with words, there are no traded apologies, but they watch reruns of _Remington Steele_ side-by-side on the couch and make fun of Dean’s cooking in tandem. Occasionally, they flashback to old memories, before the chasm opened between them. One day, John finds an old photo album and the two men spend the day poring over old pictures of Dean and Sam as toddlers while Dean disinfects the house. 

The next day, John coughs up blood. Dean increases the pain medicine like the doctor tells him on the phone.

The day after that, he sleeps, and Bobby talks to Dean about how things have been. Dean is a mechanic now, but he’s been taking night classes to get a college degree. Dean tells him about Cas. Cas is a librarian and he wears sweaters all the time and is a beekeeper on the side and he and Dean shouldn’t make sense but they do. Sam calls in the middle of dinner and Dean puts him on speaker so he can talk to both of them.

And then John dies in his sleep. 

He looks downright peaceful, the lines on his face softened, not betraying a life of anger, and for once, Dean’s not mad at his dad. There will be time to manage all of this later—there are calls to make, to the coroner and the doctor’s office and to Sam and his mom and to Cas. John wanted to be cremated, his ashes spread around his hometown. Dean will take care of that. There’s a funeral to plan, but that can wait, too. 

For now, Dean takes one last look at his father and then goes to the back deck, letting the spring air buffet him, and he decides to feel it all. 


End file.
